A black conservative's place for independent thinking and common sense -- A little oasis for those who got caught up in the momentum of the civil rights movement, but failed to discern the false from the true

Friday, October 02, 2009

The hugeness of the Goldstone commission report has a lot to do with Goldstone’s Jewishness. Besides destroying hundreds of Palestinian children, Gaza unsettled the liberal American Jewish community nine months ago, and now Goldstone’s report is reopening the wound. Israeli leaders call the report a "mockery of history" and a "kangaroo court," but I don’t think American Jews will be so dismissive.Here is Dan Fleshler, deeply disturbed by the report to the point of labeling himself a "self-hating Jew" out of solidarity with Goldstone, "my kind of Jew." ... : "I do know that Israel will have a difficult time discrediting the report by citing the UN’s past transgressions, or insisting that Israel went out of its way to avoid civilian casualties, or explaining how the report neglected to include the 'context' for Israel’s actions. White phosphorus provides its own context."

Norman Finkelstein sounds similar themes on Amy Goodman today ... : "What’s significant about the report, in my opinion, and what’s significant about what happened in Gaza, I think it marks a major turning point. It’s like the Sharpville massacre in South Africa. Now, Sharpville is not Soweto, but Sharpville was a turning point. Richard Goldstone is a liberal. Richard Goldstone is very supportive of Israel. And it’s now marking the breakup of liberal Jewish support for Israel." ...

And here’s Ilene Cohen predicting that hasbara will not be able to counter the rift this report will cause between American Jews and Israeli Jews: "I think the Israeli propaganda blitz will yield very little for Israel. Yes, there will be a lot of noise, but the damage to Israel was already done, in the form of the many people around the world, including in the US and including in the American Jewish community, by the horrors that people saw." ...

Jeff Blankfort likes to say that the Israel lobby’s efforts are aimed chiefly at American Jews, to rally them to the cause of Israel. Well, maybe that ain’t working any more.

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Loss of the Issues & Views website

Due to the fact that the owners of the company that has hosted Issues & Views - The Website, since its creation in 1997, have decided to host only sites in Alaska, the website linked to this blog is probably lost.

Issues & Views - The Website (www.issues-views.com) contained hundreds of articles first printed in the hard copy Issues & Views newsletter (1983 through 2002), along with newer articles composed in the 1990s.

Although the former host has re-directed clicks to the website to this blog, it does not appear that there will be any rescue of the website's files or database. For this reason, surfers looking for issues-views.com are landing on this blog. (The website is currently being cached by Google.)

I have learned that an archived version of the website is available on Wayback Machine. Unfortunately, this last capture was performed in 2008, so it lacks certain minor deletions and editing done in 2009 and 2010. However, anyone searching for a particular article should be able to find it there.

- Elizabeth (issues@issues.cnc.net)

Racism is not "sin"

Over the years, as whites have worked to defend themselves against the charge of "racism," they have validated this slur by giving it greater importance than it deserves, and thereby helped to institutionalize it as the world's greatest "sin." As to genuine sin, harboring negative thoughts concerning some group is much further down the list of human deficiencies than bombing Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Dresden and Hamburg, or hacking to death with machetes the men, women and children of an enemy tribe. Now, those are sins! Seeking to force "diversity" down the throats of an unreceptive segment of society is the religious mission of rabid, agenda-driven ideologues. None of this apparent concern for "social justice" has ever been about virtue. It's about power.

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Jacobs and Potter on the un-American nature of "hate crime" legislation.